Here’s the story of a three-story building with a roof so bad that tiles were sliding off and falling onto the streets below. That’s not just a bad roof job – that’s a major safety hazard!
In this situation, the building owner had hired a contractor to do the roof. During the year warranty period, problems like this kept recurring, including a neverending series of leaks. Each time the owner asked for help, the contractor would go up and take care of the leak, then leave.
The problem was, the roof never stayed fixed. As soon as rains came again, the owner would have to call again to get a leak looked at, the contractor would go up, and then leave.
This kept going on the same way until one day, the contractor came back down from the roof and demanded payment. The warranty had expired. Outraged, the owner said that the roof had been leaking since day one! He fired the contractor and started looking for someone new (and fortunately found Castro
The Missing Link
This story is all-too-familiar to us here at Castro. We’ve repeatedly seen instances of building owners or managers who want the roof to stay fixed, but get this kind of shoddy work and treatment. Why does this happen?
Well, what we find is that many owners try to get a bid on a roof project and materials from a third party architect consultant, then hire the roofer separately to do the job.
They assume that the bids they get from the roofers now represent an apples to apples comparison, because the materials will cost the same for everyone.
They’re wrong.
Instead, these owners get roofers who vary from qualified and experienced down to incompetent and unreliable. They pick the lowest bidder among the roofers, thinking they’ll get the best deal.
But they’re forgetting one thing: the missing link.
Craftsmanship
In our experience, materials aren’t what cause a roofing system to fail – improper installation is the culprit!
That means, even if you choose a lesser material, you’ll still get better results by choosing a fantastic roofer than you will by choosing a great material and a mediocre roofer.
Invariably, it’s craftsmanship that sets apart the quality jobs from the horrible ones. As I like to say, “If you hire a butcher for your roof repair job, all you can expect is a butchered job.”
So, now that you know craftsmanship is the missing link, how do you know what to look for in a contractor? Stay tuned next month to learn about the standards and qualifications a roof contractor should have!
Roofing above the rest,
Rudy Rodriguez
Chief Executive Dreamer
